30T Cebu City seniors to get incentive in July

CEBU, Philippines - An estimated 30,000 Cebu City senior citizens will receive their cash assistance from the Cebu City government next month with the budget allocation of P100 million for this year.

Cathy Yso, the chief head of the Department of Social Welfare Services, yesterday said they conducted validation and verification to ascertain their eligibility to avail of the incentive from the city.

“The validation and verification process uses the summarized list of payrolls and the baseline data of the Office of Senior Citizen’s Affairs for the summary list of all senior citizens who were issued with the OSCA identification card,” Yso said.

OSCA earlier discovered over 100 names in the list of beneficiaries who are already dead but their relatives continue claiming their annual financial assistance.

After this, the DSWS conducted validation of all senior citizen IDs and verification of the list of beneficiaries to check if they are still alive.

Their priorities in verification are the senior citizen beneficiaries who, according to the DSWS record, gave power of attorney to their relatives to claim the assistance on their behalf.

These are senior citizens who are allegedly sick or cannot come personally to the distribution center due to their health conditions.

The P4,000 yearly financial assistance will be released during the payroll in every barangay in Cebu City. But next month, Yso said the senior citizens will receive P2,000.

Yso said the provision of giving cash assistance for senior citizens is in line with the fulfillment of the obligation of the government to protect the most vulnerable sector through social protection and for the full implementation of Republic Act 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010.

Yso said the cash assistance also aims to help the family augment the daily subsistence and other medical needs of indigent seniors particularly those who are sickly and bedridden.

OSCA president George Villamor said they have 12,000 senior citizen members from all the city’s barangays.

Villamor said OSCA will continue to provide good services to the senior citizens in Cebu City through medical missions, educational training, religious and civic and cultural activities. — (FREEMAN)